Day 257: Continuing My Education

I’m on a sort of John Piper kick. For this act of love, I read his chapter on marriage from Desiring God. He made the point that love seeks its own joy in the joy of others. From what I could tell, his claim is that one person loves another person just in case she (consistently) attempts to receive joy in bringing joy to the other. As for me, if I love you, I should be seeking my joy in bringing you joy. A source of my pleasure should be your pleasure. That’s exactly what’s happened through the course of 365 Acts of Love.

Before I started 365, I was very concerned with my own happiness, regardless of your happiness. But as 365 progressed, I grew to find joy in bringing you joy. In fact, though my ultimate source of joy is God (or at least, that’s what I’m striving for), part of my joy depends on your joy. When you rejoice, I rejoice. When you weep, I weep. When you’re happy, I’m happy. (Rom. 12:15.) Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that my happiness depends on your happiness in that your unhappiness prevents me from satisfying some selfish desire of mine (though that’s sometimes the case). The kind of dependency I’m talking about is this: since I care for you and want you to be happy, I’m made unhappy simply by knowing that you’re unhappy.